4.20.2012

Making Pasta

What do you get when you have a surplus of eggs? An excuse to make pasta! Now, this is going to be a tutorial, and there is a REALLY funny part at the end... Enticing, eh?

Ok, so you start with eggs, salt, semolina flour, and water. I do not have an exact recipe for this, it is a "feely" type thing. It really just depends on the size of your eggs, how much moisture is in the air, etc. Sorry.

My eggs

They really are just so purdy!

SO first off, add 2 or 3 eggs to your food processor. Mine cannot handle more than 3, so that is my max. Add in a pinch or 2 of salt. Process to make scrambled eggs. Add in enough semolina flour so that the mixture looks like wet sand. For today, that came out to about 1 and 1/2 cups. Perhaps tomorrow it would be more or less.

Sorry, this pic is sideways

The mixture should hold together when you squeeze it in your hand, but should not stick to your hand.

Pour the sandy mixture out onto a lightly floured counter, and squeeze it together rolling it around to pick up any stray pasta crumbs. Separate it into 4 pieces. (This is where I am a lucky girl) Roll out the pasta pieces flat so that they will fit into your pasta roller. Start on number 1, rolling and folding your pasta, rolling and folding, until it come through number 1 looking smooth and pliable. move through the numbers, 2, 3, 4, etc until you get the desired thickness. I like number 5 for my freezer pasta. 4 would be a good thickness if you wanted lasagna noodles. MAKE SURE you sprinkle flour between the sheets as you build up your pile so that the pasta doesn't stick together!

one sheet of pasta

Then you can either freeze sheets of pasta for lasagna, you can roll them up, and cut them wide for papardelle, or you can put them through a cutter for fettucine or spaghetti. I like to freeze fettucine, so that's what I did.

pile of noodles

You can either cook these right away, you can dry them, keep them in the fridge, or freeze them. In the fridge, use them within a week. Frozen, they will keep for up to 3 months. I like to weigh mine out into 4 ounce portions. SO, with 5 eggs, a little flour, I got 2 and 1/2 pounds of pasta. YUM YUM!!!

Into the freezer they go! Sorry, this pic is sideways :(

SO, you must be asking yourself, what is so funny about making pasta? Well, anyone who reads this that actually knows me knows that I CANNOT do anything in the kitchen without spilling, splattering, and making a mess. Well, after I took that pic with the pasta on a sheet pan, I was walking over to the freezer, tripped over Punkin and flipped the ENTIRE tray onto floor, upside down. Its a good thing my floor was clean or else I would have had to toss the whole thing.

SO THEN I was using the little shopvac to clean up the flour that was now all over the floor, and I pulled the cord a little too tight, and knock a completely full cup of coffee onto the floor. So then I had to clean that up.

OH and while I was at the market, I ran into my supervisor from work. It was fine, but weird. Kind of like being a kid and seeing your teacher at the grocery store in her sweats. Can I start today over???

Hooray for making pasta! I first did it a couple months ago, and I love it. Sooooo easy. I don't even use a processor, I just make a pile of flour, then dump the eggs and salt in. mix with hands, roll and cut.

I like to use regular AP flour if I am making dumpling type noodles, but have found that semolina gives such a silky noodle for sauces. Oh yummmmmm! And yeah, eggs are SUPER expensive! Before the chickens, I purchased eggs from an organic farm stand at the market. THey used to be 2.15/doz. Now, they over 3.00/doz. Makes me thankful for my girls!